And The Road Becomes My Pride
by Beejette
Summary: Jo's had a very different life. Her mother died when she was ten, and she's been raised by her father, who tried to keep her a little girl, so she rebelled in every way she could think of, the biggest of which, was setting out with John Winchester. - I'm aware I already have an unfinished fanfiction out, but I'm running out of chapters and I've currently lost my muse for it.
1. Chapter 1

John hates it when she smokes in the truck, has told her a thousand times, but it kind of feels good, undermining him slightly the way he does her on the biggest of things, hunts and places to eat and music choices.

Every time Jo lights up in the passenger seat, she lets her eyes flick sideways just to catch the tightening in John's jaw as she inhales deeply and rolls down the window so she can blow the grey smoke into the wind.

Tonight's no different as she lights one of the non-filtered rollies she'd done up, quick as a flash, in the parking lot while waiting for him to pay for gas. "That'll kill you," he says quietly, and she only glances at him as the smoke billows out of the side of her mouth.

"So will a heart attack," she replies dully, chewing on her lip slightly and leaning back, tapping her fingers idly against the fraying knee of her jeans to the beat of the AC/DC tune that's turned down just enough to be background noise.

John just sighs, shifts gears and shakes his head. "Wouldn't have agreed to take you on if I knew you were gonna get yourself killed by somethin stupid as cigarettes."

Jo rolls her eyes and takes two more puffs in quick succession, filling her lungs one more time before licking the pads of her pointer finger and thumb and squashing out the cherry, blowing the smoke out the window as she opens the old Marlboro pack she keeps her rollies in and rolls up the window.

Not another word is spoken and they're crossing the line into Arizona when John leans over to turn up the radio.


	2. Chapter 2

Jo's never met John's sons, but she knows he has two, has seen the picture in the back of his journal, and she knows one's named Dean and wherever he is, he's in possession of an Impala that John will kick his ass over if he ever so much as lays a scratch on her. She has no idea what the other's name is, or even which is which in the photograph, and she doesn't bother to ask, because any questions would be met with that stony silence John's famous for.

They don't prowl through each other's shit either, and she's thankful for that rule, because she can't imagine John ever finding some of the shit in her bag. Like her own journal or the bible she keeps, old and tattered, but you can still read the words and she's got stuff stuck in pages, photographs of her own and letters and shit that she likes to keep near her, reminders of her own family.

She's glad they don't talk about it and John's taken stock enough of her that he avoids Nebraska almost entirely. They never go into Kansas either and she supposes that's because John's got history there, but she never presses on it, just shuts up, faces forward and keeps her eyes on the road.

Sometimes they talk about cars. John's not really impressed by how much she knows about engines, but she doesn't expect him to be, because all of that always seemed too complicated to her. She knows the basics. How to change a tire, how to check her oil, how to read a tire gauge. John likes to try to teach her a bit more, but she never quite grasps it. She does say how she'd love to see that Impala and John just gives her a kind of sideways grin and if he were anyone else, she'd expect a jibe about liking to feel the motor rumble or something like that, but John just keeps quiet with that irritating grin on his face.

And if there's one thing Jo hates more than anything, it's when John gets around other hunters. He doesn't act any differently, but he doesn't stick up for her either when they say something about how she should 'be a doll and fetch me a beer while we talk'. The only time he's ever come to her rescue is over an altercation with a man who said John only kept her around for a piece of ass, but only that was denial and a brush off.

Still, she never complained. Just did what she was told, head down, obeying orders, yes sir.


	3. Chapter 3

John's on the phone when Jo wakes up in a bed at the Blue Crab motel right in the middle of Montana. She huffs out a sigh, scratching her head as she watches him move about the room, muttering into the device. Puffing out another sigh, she sits up, pushes herself off the bed, stumbling slightly on uncooperative legs, and grabs her wallet off the end table, pulling a wrinkled dollar from the depths of it.

The water at the motel is tinny, and it's only one of the things she hates about this one. She pushes open the door, stepping out of the air-conditioned sanctuary of the room and into the hot mid-summer morning. She blearily walks down the sidewalk, warm from the sun against her bare feet, to the soda machine in front of the front office, scratching her arm absently as she assesses the cloudless, blue sky. It's only ten and it's close to boiling.

She punches the button for Mt. Dew, but a lukewarm Diet Coke is what comes clumbering out of the machine.

Jo sighs but grabs it and opens it, taking a sip. It's too warm to be really considered refreshing, but the can's half gone before she's done wetting her mouth with the carbonated liquid, and it stings somewhere in her nose, makes her wrinkle it up and pant slightly as she pulls the tin away from her lips.

She heads back to the room, running a hand through her hair, matted from sleep, and pushes open the door, shutting it behind her. John's sitting on the edge of his bed putting on his boots and he looks up as she enters. "Where you been," he gruffs at her.

"Butterfly hunting. See my net," she asks, raising the can and shaking it slightly as she makes her way around his bed on her way to hers, making the carbonated liquid inside hiss.

"Smartass. Get dressed. We're going to Bobby's." Jo only nods, pulling out a cigarette. "And don't smoke in here."

She rolls her eyes but slides the rollie back into the pack, sticking her tongue out at John when he turns back to his boots, and deciding she needed to shower.

"I saw that."

"No you didn't," she replied, shutting the bathroom door behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

Jo's been on the road with John almost six months and she's never met Bobby Singer.

Till now.

They roll into the scrap yard around three, and it's so hot that she's sweating as soon as she pops open the door to the truck and hops down, a jump that always makes her ankles sting. At least she doesn't stumble this time.

Jo grabs her duffel and follows John up to the porch, waiting while he knocks. The door swings open to reveal who she guesses is Bobby and she's struck by just how much he reminds her of her father, beer belly and all.

Their introduction is brief, first name only, and she gives the older man a smile and shakes his hand. "Pleased to meet ya," Jo drawls out, and Bobby grins.

"You too. You two stayin' long?"

"Just for a day or two if you don't mind."

"You know I don't. Got a bed upstairs and a pull out down. You can squabble over arrangements later. You guys hungry?"

Immediately, Jo's stomach twists and reminds her that it's empty and John agrees to let Bobby fix them something. A half hour later finds them seated at the tiny kitchen table eating sandwiches and the end of a bag of kettle-cooked potato chips.

Bobby keeps the conversation going with John, chatting about the truck and the hunts and Jo pretty much stays quiet, thinking about the things she's heard about the man.

Widower. Hell of a hunter. You need help, you go to Bobby Singer, and he'll get you straightened out.

"Haven't seen much of Dean. Heard from him?"

Jo pretends not to listen, but she perks at the mention of one of John's sons.

"Yeah. Called a few days ago. Chasing a rougarou up in Maine."

"Bein' careful?"

"Said he was. Told him to call if he got stuck."

There's a moment of pause before Bobby presses on with, "Was up by way of Palo Alto the other day." John doesn't respond. "You really should call him."

John's silent and Bobby's silent and Jo's consciously aware of how loud she chews, sneaking a peek at John to find him starin pensively at the large, black kettle on the front of the potato chip bag, like it holds all the answers he's looking for.

There's the clicking of toenails on the linolium then, almost scaring her out of her wits, and she turns to see a big, black Rotty. He looks at all of them with oil drop eyes and then settles down by Jo, heavy head resting on her knee. Bobby chuckles, and she's aware that he saw her jump then, and drawls out, "That's Rumsfeld. Don't worry, he don't bite or anythin'."

Jo smiles down at the dog and pets him, scratching behind floppy ears, which he approves of in the form of a long groan, tilting his head toward her. Her smile widens, and she pulls the crust off her bread and feeds it to him. It seems like he doesn't chew, just swallows, and that earns a laugh from the girl, bending to press a kiss to the flat of his head.

"Now you've got a new best friend," Bobby chuckled, and Jo smiles up at him.

They sit at the table a while longer, nursing cold beers and Rumsfeld, after certain that no more scraps were coming his way, settled down at her feet to nap on the cool linoleum.

Finally, John drained his beer and stood, mumbling about how he needed a shower. Jo listened to him grab up his duffle and climb the stairs, steps heavy on them.

She and Bobby are both silent a moment before he pipes up with, "So how'd you pick up with John?"

Jo shrugs. "No real story."

"Then you won't mind telling me."

She nods after a moment and takes another sip off her beer. "My Mama and Daddy were hunters before I was born. After, they settled down, and Dad quit hunting." She rubbed at her chin absently, another habit she'd picked up from John. "Guy named Gordon Walker, might've heard of him, came through with a hunt. Two man job." She paused to chuckle and take a pull off her beer, shaking her head. "They argued about who would go, and in the end, Mom won. Always did. Last thing she ever said to me, kissed my forehead and said, "You be a good girl for your Daddy, Joanna Beth. If I hear anythin' about you misbehavin' when I get back, I'mma ground you till you're thirty," and she climbed in the truck and pulled off."

She takes another sip of her beer, but it's more to hide the fact that her eyes have suddenly gotten blurry and there's a knot in her throat, making it hard for her to swallow the bitter liquid. "Far as he said, it was an accident. He jumped the trap too soon and she didn't have time to get away. Ever since then, I've wanted to do the job. It's my way of being close to her. Dad didn't wanna lose another girl to the life. So, I told him I was leavin' with or without his permission, and left. I haven't called him or anything since. About two months later, John found me in Pontiac, Illinois, gettin' my ass handed to me by a ghost. He iced the bastard and then tried to talk me into goin' home. I politely refused. So he said he wasn't gonna leave me with no real trainin', defenseless. We've been travelin' together ever since."

"How long's it been since you talked to your Daddy?"

"Almost a year."

"That ain't right. You should call him."

"If I call him, he's gonna tell me to get my ass home, and I don't feel like having that argument again."

At that moment, John comes down the stairs, effectively cutting off Bobby's reply, leaning heavily on the bannister, and he smells like Irish Spring when he walks past her.

He makes Jo take the bed upstairs, insisting he sleep on the roll out, even through all her arguments about it, and she spends most of the night lying awake, covers pushed down at her ankles, staring out the window at the moon.

The last time she glances at her cell phone, the illuminated face tells her it's 3:54 AM.


	5. Chapter 5

Jo wakes up to a quick knock and opens her eyes just as John's barging in, and whatever he's going to say is lost somewhere in his throat as his eyes flick over her in the bed in a pair of panties and a soft cotton tank top, covers in a ball on the floor. "John," she asks, voice all rough with sleep.

His eyes go to her face and she nearly gasps because his gaze is all bottomless and hot, jolting through her like warm honey drizzled over her thighs.

In an instant, his face changes, becomes emotionless, stony. "Time to get up. Bobby went to the grocery store and you're gonna learn how to shoot a crossbow today."

He turns and stalks out of her room, pulling the door closed behind him without another word.

She dresses in cotton shorts and a tank top, sports bra under it and sneakers, decidedly not thinking about John or the way his eyes looked. Brushing her teeth and hair takes her all of five minutes and she braids the blonde locks quick as a flash into a knot down her back and then puts on deodorant, because she knows she'll need it if they're outside.

John's nowhere in sight when she hits the bottom of the stairs, so she takes her time with breakfast, buttered toast, and coffee.

She's just finishing up when John comes in, looking like he's annoyed she's eating and hasn't mastered the crossbow just by sheer force of will already.

Once outside, he instructs her for almost an hour on the way to hold it, to load it, to point it and shoot it, and when he finally hands it over, she misses twice before taking out the cans lined up on the hood of a car. A crossbow was definitely different from a gun.

Only when she'd taken the cans down without a mistake so many times that they wouldn't even stand on their own anymore did John declare her good enough. "Now, we're doing drills."

Jo groaned. "Really? With how hot it is? I'm going to get heat stroke."

"You're not going to get heat stroke. Just a few laps around the salvage yard."

"How many's a few?"

"Four. Take a bottle of water with you. Just in case."

Jo huffs out a sigh, but nods. Instead of taking the bottle with her around, though, she sets it in a shady spot where she can pick it up on the way if she needs it.

By lap two, she's drained the bottle and is panting heavily, covered in a sheen of sweat and she's pretty sure she's sunburned. She keeps going though, and Rumsfeld joins her for a bit, trotting beside her and panting with his massive tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth and she laughs.

On her third lap around, there's a fresh bottle of water and she mentally thanks the Gods for John Winchester.

Finally, she's finished, coming in at the finish line and pausing to brace her hands on her knees and pant. She finishes off her bottle of water and is relieved when a third one is produced as she steps up on the porch, courtesy of John. This one's colder than the other two, and she gulps down a third of it and pours the rest over the heated skin of her face and the back of her neck and her chest and it feels so good that she wants to die right then.

When she opens her eyes, John's looking at her, but Bobby's pulling into the drive before she can identify what was in his eyes.

He's got a trunk full of stuff and, of course, John acts like she can't carry anything but the light bags.

Jo makes dinner that night, and it's been a while since she's cooked, but the chicken turns out pretty good and afterward, they all sit around the table again, drinking beer.

It's almost twelve when she stretches, drains her beer, and mumbles, "Think I'm gonna go to bed."

"Good idea," John replies, and watches while she takes her plate to the sink and washes it off.

"I'll get the dishes I used tomorrow," she promises Bobby, who nods. "G'night."

John and Bobby both bid her goodnight and she walks up the stairs, Rumsfeld at her heels, because she's apparently the only one who lets him sleep on the end of her bed.

Up in the room, she takes off her clothes and walks to the bathroom wrapped in her towel. The cool water beating down on her head feels fantastic as it washes away the sweat and grime from the day.

Jo spends nearly an hour in the shower, leisurely shaving and washing and conditioning. She even brushes her teeth so she can spend longer under the cool water, and when she finally emerges, she's pruned and it's hot. Wrapping her towel around herself, she opens the bathroom door to John and pauses a moment before smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. Water felt so great."

John only nods and she eases by him to her room, trying to tell herself it's only her imagination when she feels his gaze run over her.


End file.
